The
journey of poetic composition, as the poet says himself, begins with
the poet and ends with the reader for which requires verbal competency,
intelligence and constructive environment in order to code and decode
the ‘signals’ of creative beauty in a forceful and effective manner.
Since the poet is the first reader and critic of his poetic piece, he
should have the capacity to articulate and interpret his own words in
prose in order to judge the suitability, profundity and authenticity of
his ‘signals’ in the form of emotions, ideas and images for
inter-personal and intra-personal communications. T S Eliot also
emphasized this in The Music of Poetry; however, in the
coercive manner: “No poet can write a poem of amplitude unless he is a
master of the prosaic.” Therefore, Eliot’s statement may or may not be
true in the making of a poetic piece; but it is certain that command
over prose is an additional advantage to the poet, particularly in
conversation with himself as well as with the lovers of literature on a
public platform; and it is indispensable when the poet also performs as
critic for efficient and captivating criticism. Here is such an Indian
poet of communicative sensibilities and critic of glittering language—
Ram Krishna Singh (1950). Prof Singh, who is the contemporary of
Niranjan Mohanty, Hoshang Merchant, R. C. Shukla, Gopi Krishnan Kattoor,
D. C. Chambial, I. K. Sharma, Gopal Honnalgere, I. H. Rizvi, D. H.
Kabadi, P. C. K. Prem, etc., knows how to raise and answer the questions
about the world and its problems and how to incorporate information
along with emotion in poetry and criticism in order to disseminate love
and light to all the human and non-human entities of the Mother Earth
through purity, charity, sacrifice and suffering: “I gave you my love/
what more do you seek/ to lighten the night/ my beloved/ let the fire
burn /and consume the moth.”

Recently
retired as Professor (HAG) from Indian School of Mines (now IIT),
Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India, R. K. Singh has authored more than 160
research articles, 175 book reviews and 40 books, including his latest
poetry collection You Can’t Scent Me and Other Selected Poems (2016) from Authorspress along with his e-book Writing Editing Publishing A Memoir
(2016). He has been conferred with many awards and honours across the
world. He resides at J/4 (W), Rd. No.1/Block B, Vastu Vihar Colony, N H
2, Govindpur- 828109 (Dhanbad), Jharkhand and can also be contacted at
profrksingh@gmail.com

N.B: The profile of R K Singh is separately published in author’s corner. It may be clicked and viewed HERE.

ASC:Sir,
you were born, brought up and educated in Varanasi— the seat of light
and learning from the ancient times. How did it play its role in the
formation of a silver tongue poet and rational critic in you?

RKS:A
silver tongue poet? Hm… Thanks for the compliment Abnish. Varanasi is a
complex city, a city of contradictions, even if it has ceased to be
what it used to be in my formative years in the 1950s and 60s.

The city did influence my mental habits unconsciously, since I was born
and raised in the lanes and by-lanes of its interior, with values such
as freedom to think and pursue ones interests, tolerance for
differences, broadness and openness of the mind, uninhibited
sexpression, etc. The conscious creative influences must be the result
of meeting many people, visiting various places, and experiencing life
differently at different points of time. Also, reading and observing
led to serious critical thinking, writing, debating, and corresponding.
I had opportunities to work part-time and be independent to do whatever
I liked. Besides writing poetry in Hindi, I had opportunities to
reflect on contemporary issues and express myself in a couple of Hindi
dailies and weeklies long before my graduation, just as I would actively
participate in youth activities, debate and speech competitions, attend
musical concerts, art exhibitions, poets’ meet etc and publish
reports/reviews.

The
city engaged me better than the irrelevant routines of the high school,
intermediate and degree colleges. The teachers disappointed me most,
from childhood to boyhood to adulthood.

I
must also admit that I was not uninfluenced by the chaos and crisis of
the 1960s. As a youth I had no hope, no faith, no trust in the system,
nor did I know the direction of life. It was living in constant tension
about the future. In fact it was a lonely struggle vis-à-vis the
glaring waste of time in college and university. Given my
anti-establishment attitude, I was not confident that I could ever get a
job or have a career. Failure and frustration loomed large. Poetry
was the only solace.

ASC:Sir,
you started your career as a journalist. The job of a journalist always
requires honesty, hard work, quality writing and the courage to tell
the truth. But, just after a year or two you changed your job and
adopted the teaching profession, which also demands proper understanding
of the subject matter, wide interest, helpful attitude, love for
learning, skills of classroom management and a desire to make a
difference in the lives of the taughts. How much are these experiences
constructive in communicating your vision and mission in your literary
works and academic writings?

RKS: As
I said, as a student I had very poor opinion of my teachers. I had no
interest in teaching as a career, but Professor S M Pandeya, who
supervised my M A thesis, insisted that I should not be drawn to the
glitters of journalism, and rather take up teaching as a profession. He
even helped me get the first job as a lecturer in a college in Pulgaon
by writing to O P Bhatnagar, who later became a life-long friend. I was
21 years old, wanted to do Ph D in American literature from Nagpur or
Bombay university, but the management won’t let me go to meet the
faculty there. I resigned the job in less than six months and came back
home.

After
a year (or more) of unemployment—a period I spent with Dr B
Chakroverty, learning the finer nuances of literary criticism (he was
writing a book on Tagore, the dramatist)—I joined the District
Gazetteers Dept in Lucknow as Compilation Officer. The U.P.
Government’s job entailed revising and updating the old gazetteers.

I
ignored the offer of working in IIT, Kanpur as a junior lecturer. It
came just around the time I had made up my mind to work in Lucknow.

In
the mean time, I was also selected as a journalist trainee in The Press
Trust of India, New Delhi, and was keen to join the position. However,
my IAS bosses in the Gazetteers Dept (as also my parents) dissuaded me,
but seeing my enthusiasm, they released me, with the kind option to
return to the post if not satisfied at PTI within three months.

I
was happy to join my dream profession, despite monetary loss and
hardships of living in Delhi. But soon I discovered I was a misfit
there. I couldn’t suffer the envious colleagues and their dubious
designs and practices, and so, I finally decided to quit, as soon as I
got an offer from the newly set-up Royal Bhutan Polytechnic, Deothang
(E. Bhutan).

I
was back to teaching, which now appeared more convenient, but very
demanding. The direction of my career was clear: I would professionally
practice ELT/ESP, but personally pursue literature, especially Indian
English poetry, and promote new/less known poets and authors by
reviewing their books, writing articles about their work, and editing
books and journals. It was challenging but rewarding. Learning by
doing, you know. It is this that made me known all over, from a small
place like Dhanbad. Indeed, all this needs a lot of labour and
commitment, as you rightly observed.

ASC: Sir,
how do you summon your emotions and experiences for composing a poem or
other work of art? Do you respond to urgency, stipulation or passion
for creative writings, which seems as real, animated and impressive as
the rest of the world?

RKS: To
tell you the truth, most of the poems I wrote have simply happened. The
poetic mood, short-lived as it is, would help create from anything,
anywhere, anytime. I can’t write a poem deliberately on a theme on
demand. Nor have I been interested in didactic or moralistic writing.
My emotions and experiences are, therefore, genuine and sympathetic
readers can relate to them.

Personally
speaking, a poem’s composition helps me get a release from myself as
much as from others or whatever agitates me. I feel free by unburdening
myself in verses; I experience an inner relief, a freedom from the
built-up pressure, tension, unease, or whatever, you know. If it turns
out to be a good poem, it offers a pleasing sensation, rest to my
disturbed nerves, and peace to my inner being.

ASC:Sir,
you have been regularly writing poetry with social, cultural,
spiritual, ethical, mythical, erotic and aesthetic perceptions for the
international audiences with the universal lessons of truth, love,
compassion, pity, peace and harmony. How do you secure and evolve
selfhood along with worldhood in your poetry amidst the fast changing
societies and their value-systems?

RKS: Thanks
for summarizing well the essential nature of my poems. I, too, think it
is broad enough to appeal to audiences everywhere. Human nature is
same, whatever culture, society or country, and I have tried to express
what people experience universally. I don’t seek the sublime or great
or ideal, you see. I am rooted in my basic nature, which has been
evolving. When effective, one can physically feel it, I mean, the
poet’s emotion or psychosexual sensation, and partake of his self.

There
is poetry in the subtlety of awareness, as you will also agree. I feel
myself in words that acquire their own existence in the process of
making, in a form I may have no control over, given the pressure or
urgency to express the momentness of a moment as lived, perceived, or
experienced in the continuity of memory. My selfhood extends to
worldhood in my expression in a timeless frame of a moment inhering the
pressure of the struggle for survival, search for meaning or purpose in
an otherwise very negative, frustrating, disappointing, painful
existence, or social reality, if you so like.

ASC:
Sir, when you talk about (even question) sense, silence, solitude, love
and sex amidst the sound and serenity of pebbles, stones, rivers and
the flora and fauna of the mother earth, you imbibe and inculcate man
and Nature in your poetry, which is clearly recognized and understood by
your readers. In spite of that, why do you rhetorically proclaim- ‘I Do
Not Question’ (1994) and ‘You Can’t Scent me’ (2016)?

RKS:
The answer lies in your question itself: it’s rhetorical.
Philosophically, a straight forward observation of the Purush-Prakriti
or Yin-Yang consciousness vis-à-vis the monotony of existence. I seek
meaning of the mystery of life, its reality and pains through the eyes
of Nature, metaphors of self-contradictions, intrinsic dissonance, or
search for harmony and identity.

Having
said this, let me also add a word of caution. I’m very poor at titling
my poems. In fact I don’t believe in giving a title to my poem, nor do I
give a title while composing it. Titles tell too much. In my volume of Collected Poems,
you’ll find no title, unless extremely necessary for identification or
other structural reasons (as in Haiku/Tanka sequences).

Without
titles, the poems give readers more freedom to make their own meaning
and relate to their own experiences, different from the poet’s.

ASC:In
one of your interviews, you have exhorted— ‘As a poet, if I use human
passion, including the sexual, I try to transmute and transmit memories
of experience, possibly more with a sense of irony than erotic
sexuality.’ Hence, do you think that your sexual passion expressed in
your poetry is meant only for creating a sense of irony— a popular
technique of poetic communication or it also stands for something else?

RKS:Sex
is eternal, unchanging over time and culture. It is the basic
principle of life and creation. It’s expression, therefore, calls for
celebration. It is central to social harmony, emotional pleasure, and
inner peace. It is not devoid of sensibility. The metaphors of sex
reveal our social consciousness, our inner mind, our hidden reality.
Our sexual passion is the mirror reflecting the spiritual passion; the
body reveals the soul. One needs to appreciate it and relate to the
pragmatics of my communication. While Jindagi Kumari’s ‘The Poetics of
R.K. Singh’ is a helpful essay in this respect, Raghuvanshmani
Tripathi’s ‘The Asexuality of Sex: A Study of Sex Expresion in R.K.
Singh’s Poetry’ should enlighten a sympathetic reader further.

ASC:You
wrote the paradox in your poem ‘Degeneration’— ‘I can’t change man or
nature, nor the karmas/ now or tomorrow they all delude/ in the maze of
expediency and curse/ stars, fate, destiny, or life before and after/
degenerating the mind, body, thought, and divine.’ Do they survive
because they bring degeneration, and ultimately death? If so, no hope,
no dream, no joy and no future?

RKS:
As a poet I would prefer to refrain from interpreting my own poem for
readers. I would rather leave it to them to make sense of it anyway
they like. I don’t question unless it is deliberately personally
offending…But, let me see it again. Firstly, the hang of the poem
‘Degeneration’ was added when I posted it online, or submitted it to
some e-journal, I don’t remember now. Secondly, it was my own
‘degeneration’ – physical, mental, financial and spiritual—that
afflicted my mood in June 2014 when I wrote it. Things were looking
blue—the envious hostility of my junior colleagues who freely distorted
facts and told outright lies, the deteriorating health condition, the
bad time predicted by astrologers, and tall claims of prophet friends,
tarot-card readers and fortune tellers on the net, seeking money to turn
the wheel of time in my favour. Their expectation from me had in-built
irony in that I couldn’t compromise my realization that best things in
life come free. But people are as they are—out to grab wealth, favour,
profit, promotion, whatever—by cheating, telling lies, weaving dreams,
or stabbing in the back. They suffer. I can’t change my nature, and my
adversaries can’t change their nature. Ultimately we are all subjected
to our own karmas, our destiny, or the forces of Nature. No use cursing
or abusing, if we delude ourselves. The plain truth is: if we are
dishonest to ourselves, we suffer all round degeneration in the maze of
our own making. The poem, however, preaches nothing, except showing a
condition. The readers can draw their own conclusions.

ASC:Sir,
what is your favorite technique (s) of protest against the anomalies/
grave issues of the world, party created by highly advanced machines and
electronic devices and partly by man himself?

RKS:
As I told you just now, portray the picture, or create the image of
what obtains, and leave the rest to the readers’ imagination, or
decision, if you like. No advice, no judgment. New technologies have
thrown up new issues, new norms, new values. The important thing now is
to communicate, to interact, to talk about whatever issues or values
bother you as an individual. You can’t live by your prejudices or
traditional ideas alone, if you hope to be relevant. The new age
demands new language, new expression, new metaphors. You will discover
the new technique to protest too. But, let’s come out of the shackles of
our own making, first.

ASC:Sir,
how do you characterize your Haiku and Tanka? Are they influential and
beneficial to the masses to a large extent or only popular among and
practiced by some selected people, especially the poets and a few
others?

RKS:
Let’s be clear about certain basics. Haiku is a difficult genre. It is
miniature poetry, a sketch of a moment’s experience, to be filled out by
the reader. It does not use sentences, nor the devices of Western
poetry, nor shares its use of the sentimental and simile—preferring
always contact with the real—the things of Nature and the spirit of
Nature herself, the perception experience. It is down to earth;
expression of what is—what you see and hear and touch; the
thing itself, not a poetic or literary or philosophical view of it. In
haiku we don’t elaborate or explain, only sketch our experience of the
moment. ‘Haiku moment’ is the great secret.

It
took me years of preparation and practice to be able to give expression
to sudden or subtle moments of awareness into the nature of passing
time. As H.F. Noyes commented, reading some of my haiku, simplicity and
lightness should be the aim of all haiku, and detachment is desirable
in our way of looking at things-- detachment, selflessness, and a sense
of our oneness with all life. It is achieving the union of our minds
with nature, or being in league with the five elements. It is
essentially spiritual. There is God’s abundance to feel in the three
lines. The briefer you become, the nearer you are to silence.

I
have tried to express sensuousness in haiku. After all, it’s not just
seeing and hearing that offer us reality, but touch as well.

Another
Japanese poetry form, Tanka is a typical lyric poem of feeling and
ideas, often involving figurative language, not used in haiku. You can
say it is like a ‘long haiku’ in five lines. It addresses varied
aspects of contemporary living. It shares the basic qualities of all
successful poems.

But
if you’re a poet, writing haiku and tanka too much can suppress some of
your true poetic instincts, even if their practice should improve the
quality of expression of Indian English poets. It will ensure a sense
of rhythm and prevent waste of words. Many of my poems have haiku and
tanka structure as stanzas.

ASC:W
H Auden said, ‘Poetry makes nothing happen. One is deluded if one
believes that one can actually preserve the world in words, but one is
just playing games if one doesn’t try.’ Do you agree with him? If yes,
why; if no, why not?

RKS:
I don’t know the context in which Auden said this, but I, too, doubt
poetry can make anything happen. It can’t mould a society by itself. It
has no utilitarian function. As I said elsewhere, it can at best create
some awareness, hone some finer feelings, present some specialist
perceptions, reflect one’s mind and soul, remain part of cultural
activities and a form of literary communication. But it can’t make
anything happen.

Personally,
I don’t practice poetry with any idealistic notion. Nor do I share the
view that poetry can teach one about ethics, morality, history,
politics, or revolution. It is no means for social salvation either. It
might assimilate, inhere or portray a degenerating situation, but it
can’t change it. My poetry commits no such obligation. Nor can poetry or
criticism become a basis for societal reform.

ASC:Sir,
you have been associated with the editorial activities, evaluation work
of research projects and book reviews throughout your academic/literary
career. Most of the times, it is observed that the authors/ researchers
manipulate (also copy, cut and paste) ideas and concepts and produce
them in their works. How do you, as a critic, examine and respond to
such works?

RKS: What
you say is true. It is indeed very disappointing that there is so much
‘recycling’ of material going on in the name of research. Scholars tend
to practice short-cuts, but it is the job of the guides/supervisors and
seniors to help them improve their language and literary abilities,
particularly research writing skills, and make them read, interpret and
evaluate the original texts. If the seniors are badly trained, their
scholars will depend on, what you call, manipulation of all sorts.

To
minimize this, scholars are now expected to publish research papers in
standard national/foreign/Thomson-Reuter listed journals before
submitting their theses just as the teachers are considered eligible for
promotion only when they have publications in standard journals. We
need to be sympathetic but tough in this respect. Let’s hope things
improve in the years ahead.

ASC:Sir,
your poetry has been translated into Italian, Japanese, Chinese,
German, French and a few other languages of the world. Translation (also
other creative works) is not an easy task. It requires proper
understanding of the language, its socio-cultural references, trends and
tendencies along with the mind and motives of the author. How much is
it effective and satisfactory when the readers are less engaged and
little interested in the translated works?

RKS:
My poems have been translated not only into Italian, Japanese, Chinese,
German and French, but also into Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish,
Turkish, Romanian, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Slovene, Croatian, Korean,
Arabic, Farsi, Serbian, Esperanto, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Kannada, and
Bangla. I hardly know any of the translators personally, but the
availability of my poems online has helped me reach out to a larger
audience. The translators must have negotiated the difficulties you
mention—I can’t comment, for I do not know all these languages (except
Hindi).

The problem with most of us is that we don’t read. We don’t care to appreciate others,
except ourselves. We don’t bother to study and critique the
fellow-travelers but expect from them to read and write about us.
Additionally, because we write in English, some of us in the academia
expect the native speakers of English to pat us; we value their
comments/opinions, and down-rate the observations by the fellow Indians,
young or old. Also, most of us don’t encourage serious academic
research in writings of the new or less known Indian English authors,
self-published or published by the small press. In such a situation,
how do you expect translations to be undertaken or studied?

We as academics need to change our attitude
if we want to be accepted within our own country, first. We can reach
out to a larger audience via translation only if we accept the fact that
people’s tastes in poetry differ widely, and most Indian poetry in
English is generally considered naïve or oversweet. Not many literary
magazines will publish translation, unless it is professionally done and
it reads as good as the original (or better than the original). We
need to handle several issues academically first... Frankly, I have more
problems with the self-styled experts and dons than with the poets and
writers who spend their own hard-earned money to publish their books and
bear the cost of sharing these with them.

ASC:Sir,
often it is observed that the publication and publicity (including
critical appreciation) of literature are based on contact, relation,
power and position. How far is it true and how can genuine authors rise
and grow in such circumstances?

RKS:
Internet has proved a great blessing. The age of all those few great
names in Indian English writing that have been repeatedly studied and
explored for academic degrees is over. Now is the time to discover new
names; study new authors, new voices. We have to prove that Indian
English writing is viable, potent and worth studying; that there is
something different about it; that it exists and is growing. Your Creation and Criticism is doing that, isn’t it?

The
institution I worked in Dhanbad is not a mainstream university, yet I
could make worldwide publications from early 1980s almost regularly,
without any personal contact, relation, or support. I had no short cuts
except hard work, clear vision, and passion. You can see from my List of
Publications how many new poets (who are now relatively better known) I
talked about, not only from our country but also from outside.

When
no computer or laptop was available, I would type out my manuscripts on
my old typewriter and approach editors and publishers without any
backing. Slowly I made my impact, despite apathy from the likes of
Ezekiel, Mahapatra, Shiv K Kumar, and all those Bombay poets. I could
ruthlessly challenge anyone because I never needed them for any personal
favour, whatever my position. They didn’t know ESP and I didn’t care to
know them (or their writings) till I started the MPhil/PhD programmes
at ISM.

In
fact, I won’t have time, motivation, or leave from the institution, to
attend conferences, or visit other universities and develop personal
relationship, except through letters. Yet, I achieved what I wanted to,
and reached the highest in the academic rung, without any personal
contact. Believe me, a good work will speak for itself, if one is
honest and working hard. Unfortunately, in most cases today, the
quality is lacking, just as friends don’t want to see beyond themselves.

ASC:Sir,
what is the role of social media, especially Facebook, Twitter and
Whatsapp, in promoting and presenting literature online when a few
followers and fellow-travelers (online friends) just ‘like’ (though most
of the times ignore the post), remark- ‘congratulation/ best wishes/
wow/ thanks/ excellent/ amazing and so on’ or rarely make some serious
comment (s) on the post?

RKS: I
view social media as a positive development for poets and writers to be
noted, even if the members’ ‘viewing’ does not necessarily mean a
post’s ‘reading’, or their ‘likes’ hardly imply something serious,
except a confirmation that they saw it. If no comments are offered, it
does not mean the post has ceased to exist. One’s presence on Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Youtube, Tumblr etc helps in
reaching out internationally. You can develop contacts here. The search
engines record what you do on these sites. It’s a matter of time,
opportunity, and a little bit of luck when your work is searched or
discovered by interested readers, scholars, editors, or publishers.

ASC:Sir,
now-a-days, prizes, awards, honors are more lucrative and valuable than
before as per the mind-set of the public. If an author is conferred
with them, he is accepted and appreciated not only in the literary arena
but also out of it. How do you perceive the politics of prize and
placement of the author in the present scenario?

RKS:
It is no doubt motivating to be honored with some prize or recognition.
Better keep from it, if it comes with politics. It is also wasteful if
it comes after paying money, for whatever reasons.

However,
if the mainstream media – TV, newspapers, learned societies, government
bodies, or publishing houses—and academia ignore me or you, it doesn’t
mean we don’t exist. It’s a matter of time till we are discovered by
interested readers, researchers, scholars, editors, or publishers at
home or abroad. We need to keep patience and continue to do what we are doing. This is what is the biggest reward in itself in the IT-dominated present time.

ASC:Sir, do you have any desire left to be fulfilled in the coming years or fully satisfied with your karmas of an author?

RKS:
Though I have minimized my academic activities and stopped teaching
after retirement last December, I continue to be active as a poet and
wish to be recognized as such by the mainstream media and academia. As
it is, I am afraid I continue to write from the margin, and I hope, in
the days ahead more scholars and critics would study and explore my
poetry to strengthen creation and criticism.

ASC:Sir, would you please share your opinions about Creation and Criticism— the literary e-journal of English Language and Literature?

RKS:
The e-journal is a happy development in the annals of literary
publications, both creative and critical, from India. Both you and
Sudhir Arora have been doing very well as editors just as your claim to
be friendly to researchers and scholars is justified. The site is
indeed very friendly. Kudos. You have already broken away from the past
and hopefully both of you will reach much higher.

Let the journal promote studies on native
Indian English poets and authors who have been active for decades from
the periphery and suffering colonialist treatment in a post-colonialist
environment, even after the maturity of Indian English. Let them not
find themselves deprived despite merits; let them not rot in anonymity
or degenerate in the politics of belonging. Let us discover (or
re-discover) the neglected and promising good poets and writers and
contribute to the development of art and criticism from the perspectives
of the 21st century scholarship. God bless.

ASC: Thank you very much for your interesting and enlightening conversation.

RKS: It’s my pleasure.

The Interviewer:

Dr Abnish Singh Chauhan (1979) is a bilingual poet, critic, translator and editor (Hindi and English). His significant books include Swami
Vivekananda: Select Speeches, Speeches of Swami Vivekananda and Subhash
Chandra Bose: A Comparative Study, King Lear: A Critical Study,
Functional Skills in Language and Literature, Functional English, The
Fictional World of Arun Joshi: Paradigm Shift in Values and Tukda Kagaz Ka (Hindi Lyrics). His deep interest in translation prompted him to translate thirty poems of B S Gautam Anurag under the title Burns Within from Hindi into English and some poems of Paddy Martin from English into Hindi. He can be contacted at abnishsinghchauhan@gmail.com.

About Me

Ram Krishna Singh is a university professor whose main fields of
interest consist of Indian English writing, especially poetry, and English for
Specific Purposes, especially for science and technology. He was born on 31
December 1950 in Varanasi, India. Apart from a BA earned in 1970, he gained his
MA in English Literature from Banaras Hindu University in 1972 and Ph D from
Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi, in 1981. He also obtained a Diploma in Russian in
1972. Dr Singh started his career in journalism, as a Compilation Officer in
the District Gazetteers Department, Lucknow, 1973, and a Journalist with the
Press Trust of India, New Delhi, 1973-74. Changing to teaching he became a
Lecturer at the Royal Bhutan Polytechnic, Deothang, Bhutan, 1974-76. Joining
the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad as a Lecturer from 1976-83, he then rose
to Assistant Professor in 1983 and full Professor and Head of the Institute’s
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences since 1993 to 2011. He is now
Professor of English (HAG).

A reviewer, critic and contemporary poet who writes in Indian English, Dr.
Singh is the author of more than 160 research articles and 175 book reviews. He
has published 39 books, including: Savitri : A Spiritual Epic (Criticism,
1984); My Silence (poems, 1985); Sound and Silence (edited articles on
Krishna Srinivas, 1986); Indian English
Writing : 1981-1985 : Experiments with Expression (ed., 1987, rept. 1991); Using English in Science and Technology (textbook,
1988, rev. and rept, 2000); Recent Indian
English Poets : Expressions and Beliefs (ed. 1992); Two Poets: R.K. Singh (I DO NOT QUESTION) Ujjal Singh Bahri (THE
GRAMMAR OF MY LIFE) (poems, 1994); General
English Practice (textbook, 1995); Anger
in Action : Explorations of Anger in Indian Writing in English (ed.,1997); My Silence and Other Selected Poems :
1974-1994 (poems, 1996); Above the
Earth’s Green (poems, 1997); Psychic
Knot : Search for Tolerance in Indian English Fiction (ed., 1998); New Zealand Literature : Some Recent Trends
(ed.,1998); Every Stone Drop Pebble (haiku,
1999); Multiple-Choice General English
for UPSC Competitive Exams (textbook, 2001); Cover to Cover (poems, 2002). Pacem
in Terris ( haiku, English and Italian, 2003), Communication : Grammar and Composition ( textbook, 2003), Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri : Essays on Love,
Life and Death ( Critical articles, 2005), Teaching English for Specific Purposes : An Evolving Experience (
Research articles and review essays, 2005), Voices
of the Present: Critical Essays on Some Indian English Poets (2006), The River Returns (tanka and haiku
collection, 2006), English as a Second
Language: Experience into Essays (ed. research articles, 2007), English Language Teaching: Some Aspects
Recollected (ed. research articles, 2008), Sexless Solitude and Other Poems (2009), Mechanics of Research Writing (2010), Sense and Silence: Collected Poems (2010), New and Selected Poems Tanka and Haiku (2012), and I Am No Jesus and Other Selected Poems, Tanka and Haiku (2014). His works have been
anthologized in about 160 publications, while his editorial activities extend
to include guest-editing of Language Forum, 1986, 1995, and Creative Forum,
1991, 1997, 1998, besides being co-editor of the latter publication from
1987-90, General Editor of Creative Forum New Poets Series, and service on the
editorial boards of Canopy, Indian Book
Chronicle, Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Reflections, Titiksha,
International Journal of Translation, Poetcrit, Impressions of Eternity (ie),
and SlugFest. He has evaluated about 50
PhD theses from various universities. He has also edited the ISM Newsletter for
about five years.